The free world owes Britain a huge debt
Re: “Britain is no land of saints and gentlemen”, Have Your Say, February 18.
Those indulging in the Brit-bashing that has broken out on these pages recently should think again.
During the centuries of colonial conquest by European powers, everybody grabbed real estate worldwide.
Of all the major colonial powers – Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France, Italy and Britain – only one really stands out.
Who and why, you ask?
The answer is Britain, which at its peak had over 100 colonies.
Why did they stand out from the rest? Not one of its colonies fell to communism. In stark contrast, all other colonies at one time or another did go communist.
Fundamentally, that is why the “free world” is free today – 400 years of British colonial roads, rules, law and, most important, a common language: English!
Quite simply, the Brits must have instilled, over 400 years, an unconscious/conscious awareness of individual freedom in their colonial subjects.
In modern times people say the Americans and allies defeated communism.
Essentially we Americans finished the job, but the Brits and their 400 years of empire building are what saved our past, present and future.
Finally, don’t sell the Brits short. As intellectual heirs to the ancient Greeks, the likes of Newton, Faraday, Whittle, William Blake, etc, helped forge our modern world in a storm of creativity, discoveries and inventions that is unmatched throughout history. British genius has now set the globe on a new course with the invention of the internet of things (IoT), called “the greatest commercial event ever on earth”. (Interestingly, Thailand plays a central role in the little-known story of IoT development: An Englishman named Graham Phillip Bloy laid the groundwork for the IoT while working in Bangkok on a new technology called Maximum Efficient Transfer of Electronic Energy.)
Perhaps the rest of the free world should be paying some sort of bounty to the Brits for keeping democracy alive.
We owe them big time.
Al in Asia
